348 research outputs found
Monitoring nutrient¯ows and economic performance in African farming systems (NUTMON) II. Tool development
Abstract Farm-NUTMON is a research tool that integrates the assessment of stocks and¯ows of the macro-nutrients nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium on the one hand and economic farm analysis on the other. The tool is applicable at both the farm and the activity level. It includes a structured questionnaire, a database, and two simple static models (NUTCAL for calculation of nutrient¯ows and the ECCAL for calculation of economic parameters). Finally, a user interface facilitates data entry, data manipulation and extracts data from the database to produce input for both models. Farm-NUTMON allows (i) estimation of the extent to which farmers generate income from soil nutrient mining, (ii) assessment of the impact of changes in farm management techniques on nutrient balance and economic performance at activity level and farm level, and (iii) calculation of the economic impact of exogenous changes on the farm and activity level.
Drude weight and dc-conductivity of correlated electrons
The Drude weight and the dc-conductivity of strongly
correlated electrons are investigated theoretically. Analytic results are
derived for the homogeneous phase of the Hubbard model in
dimensions, and for spinless fermions in this limit with -corrections
systematically included to lowest order. It is found that is
finite for all , displaying Fermi liquid behavior, , at low temperatures. The validity of this result for finite dimensions
is examined by investigating the importance of Umklapp scattering processes and
vertex corrections. A finite dc-conductivity for is argued to be a
generic feature of correlated lattice electrons in not too low dimensions.Comment: 15 pages, uuencoded compressed PS-fil
A comparative study of Tam3 and Ac transposition in transgenic tobacco and petunia plants
Transposition of the Anthirrinum majus Tam3 element and the Zea mays Ac element has been monitored in petunia and tobacco plants. Plant vectors were constructed with the transposable elements cloned into the leader sequence of a marker gene. Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated leaf disc transformation was used to introduce the transposable element constructs into plant cells. In transgenic plants, excision of the transposable element restores gene expression and results in a clearly distinguishable phenotype. Based on restored expression of the hygromycin phosphotransferase II (HPTII) gene, we established that Tam3 excises in 30% of the transformed petunia plants and in 60% of the transformed tobacco plants. Ac excises from the HPTII gene with comparable frequencies (30%) in both plant species. When the β-glucuronidase (GUS) gene was used to detect transposition of Tam3, a significantly lower excision frequency (13%) was found in both plant species. It could be shown that deletion of parts of the transposable elements Tam3 and Ac, removing either one of the terminal inverted repeats (TIR) or part of the presumptive transposase coding region, abolished the excision from the marker genes. This demonstrates that excision of the transposable element Tam3 in heterologous plant species, as documented for the autonomous element Ac, also depends on both properties. Southern blot hybridization shows the expected excision pattern and the reintegration of Tam3 and Ac elements into the genome of tobacco plants.
Dynamical Mean-Field Solution for a Model of Metal-Insulator Transitions in Moderately Doped Manganites
We propose that a specific spatial configuration of lattice sites that
energetically favor {\it 3+} or {\it 4+} Mn ions in moderately doped manganites
constitutes approximately a spatially random two-energy-level system. Such an
effect results in a mechanism of metal-insulator transitions that appears to be
different from both the Anderson transition and the Mott-Hubbard transition.
Correspondingly, a disordered Kondo lattice model is put forward, whose
dynamical mean-field solution agrees reasonably with experiments.Comment: 4 pages, 2 eps figures, Revtex. First submitted to PRL on May 16,
199
Parquet approach to nonlocal vertex functions and electrical conductivity of disordered electrons
A diagrammatic technique for two-particle vertex functions is used to
describe systematically the influence of spatial quantum coherence and
backscattering effects on transport properties of noninteracting electrons in a
random potential. In analogy with many-body theory we construct parquet
equations for topologically distinct {\em nonlocal} irreducible vertex
functions into which the {\em local} one-particle propagator and two-particle
vertex of the coherent-potential approximation (CPA) enter as input. To
complete the two-particle parquet equations we use an integral form of the Ward
identity and determine the one-particle self-energy from the known irreducible
vertex. In this way a conserving approximation with (Herglotz) analytic
averaged Green functions is obtained. We use the limit of high spatial
dimensions to demonstrate how nonlocal corrections to the (CPA)
solution emerge. The general parquet construction is applied to the calculation
of vertex corrections to the electrical conductivity. With the aid of the
high-dimensional asymptotics of the nonlocal irreducible vertex in the
electron-hole scattering channel we derive a mean-field approximation for the
conductivity with vertex corrections. The impact of vertex corrections onto the
electronic transport is assessed quantitatively within the proposed mean-field
description on a binary alloy.Comment: REVTeX 19 pages, 9 EPS diagrams, 6 PS figure
Expression of CD39 Identifies Activated Intratumoral CD8+T Cells in Mismatch Repair Deficient Endometrial Cancer
Identification of human cancer-reactive CD8+ T cells is crucial for the stratification of patients for immunotherapy and determination of immune-therapeutic effects. To date, these T cells have been identified mainly based on cell surface expression of programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) or co-expression of CD103 and CD39. A small subset of CD103- CD39+ CD8+ T cells is also present in tumors, but little is known about these T cells. Here, we report that CD103- CD39+ CD8+ T cells from mismatch repair-deficient endometrial tumors are activated and characterized predominantly by expression of TNFRSF9. In vitro, transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-beta) drives the disappearance of this subset, likely through the conversion of CD103- CD39+ cells to a CD103+ phenotype. On the transcriptomic level, T cell activation and induction of CD39 was associated with a number of tissue residence and TGF-beta responsive transcription factors. Altogether, our data suggest CD39+ CD103- CD8+ tumor-infiltrating T cells are recently activated and likely rapidly differentiate towards tissue residence upon exposure to TGF-beta in the tumor micro-environment, explaining their relative paucity in human tumors
PRIMET Version 1.0, manual and technical description; a decision support system for assessing pesticide risks in the Tropics to man, environment and trade
Pesticide exposure via for instance spray drift or runoff to surface water, accumulation in the topsoil, and leaching to groundwater potentially affects organisms in water and soil and might also pose risks to humans via dietary exposure, in case they consume contaminated aquatic products like groundwater, macrophytes and fish. To estimate these risks at the household level the PRIMET Decision Support System was developed. PRIMET runs with a minimum of input data and is developed to be used in developing countries. The risk assessment is expressed in Exposure Toxicity Ratio’s which are calculated by dividing the predicted exposure by the safe concentration. This report provides a mathematical description of the processes incorporated into PRIMET and a user manual. PRIMET is freely available at www.primet.wur.n
"Optical conductance fluctuations: diagrammatic analysis in Landauer approach and non-universal effects"
The optical conductance of a multiple scattering medium is the total
transmitted light of a diffuse incoming beam. This quantity, very analogous to
the electronic conductance, exhibits universal conductance fluctuations. We
perform a detailed diagrammatic analysis of these fluctuations. With a
Kadanoff-Baym technique all the leading diagrams are systematically generated.
A cancellation of the short distance divergencies occurs, that yields a well
behaved theory. The analytical form of the fluctuations is calculated and
applied to optical systems. Absorption and internal reflections reduce the
fluctuations significantly.Comment: 25 pages Revtex 3.0, 18 seperate postscript figure
Coherent Potential Approximation for `d - wave' Superconductivity in Disordered Systems
A Coherent Potential Approximation is developed for s-wave and d-wave
superconductivity in disordered systems. We show that the CPA formalism
reproduces the standard pair-breaking formula, the self-consistent Born
Approximation and the self-consistent T-matrix approximation in the appropriate
limits. We implement the theory and compute T_c for s-wave and d-wave pairing
using an attractive nearest neighbor Hubbard model featuring both binary alloy
disorder and a uniform distribution of scattering site potentials. We determine
the density of states and examine its consequences for low temperature heat
capacity. We find that our results are in qualitative agreement with
measurements on Zn doped YBCO superconductors.Comment: 35 pages, 23 figures, submitted to Phys Rev.
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